Monthly Archives: October 2016

New Orleanians take Halloween seriously. Dr. A recently paid her annual pilgrimage to the Berger house at the corner of State Street and St. Charles Avenue. They’ve been doing it up right for years. And, no, they’re not Garden District Skeletons, they’re Uptown Skeletons.

Here are a few photos for your virtual scrapbook:

Now that I’ve decorated the blog for All Hallow’s Eve, it’s time for some music. Our annual Boo from Crowded House with Richard Thompson along for the ride.

Don’t worry, we have plenty of candy at Adrastos World HQ but if foot traffic is light, it’s mine all mine.

The Many Klan packet has gone viral not only for its sinister weirdness but its unintentional humor:

Photograph by Lamar White Jr.

What did I tell you? The Klan kan’t spell. There are a variety of theories about the word Poles. It could have something to do with Kluxxer (Kluxxette?) strippers slowly removing their hoods whilst undulating to Free Bird. My own pet theory is that it has something to do with Polish voters in Cleveland and Chicago or even Polish American fans of the World Series teams. I suspect the Polish Falcons are outraged. What it really reflects, of course, is dumbassery and malakatude of the highest order as well as comedy of the lowest sort. Repeat after me: the Klan kan’t spell.

It’s not a shocker that the KKK is capable of heavy-handed symbolism. Subtlety has never been its strong suit but white Lifesavers? Really? I guess the Klan is gonna save the nice white people of Many from the evil female President who’s supported by the evil Black President. I wonder what flavor it was: wintergreen or spearmint? It’s a pity that there wasn’t a Cheeto in the packet to reflect their support for the man some call Cheeto Jesus but I call the Insult Comedian. In any event, a white Lifesaver on your car windshield beats the hell out of a burning cross on your lawn.

The reasons for this assault on the people of the racially mixed community of Many are obvious. Donald Trump is running for President as a White Nationalist and David Duke is vying for the Gret Stet hooker seat. Hey, maybe the misspelling of polls was a nod to Bitter Vitter. Probably not. Speaking of the erstwhile Gret Stet Fuhrer, Dukkke qualified for a Senate debate on Wednesday at Dillard Universityin New Orleans. For the uninitiated, Dillard is a HBC: historically black college. I told you this was a deeply weird election cycle. I’ll post an instant analysis of the Gret Stet Senate debate on either Wednesday night or Thursday morning

Not only has the election been tough on the voters, it has been a tough year for candy as my friend and Spank krewe-mate Brett pointed out on da Twittahs:

Add another candy to the list: Smarties were found in a few Klan packets instead of white Lifesavers. I guess some of the Loyal White Knights were disloyal to white Lifesavers or maybe they were making a statement about their own intelligence. Beats the hell out of me. I’ve never read The Klan for Dummies…

There has been so much weird nonsense this year that all one can do is mock it. Mockery = sanity. One thing we’ve learned in the Gret Stet of Louisiana is that Hate Is A Many (Louisiana) Splendored Thing.

Well, folks – we have a short Obsession this week, and mostly older stuff. Why? Because over at Freeperville, there’s just nothing there except “Comey-on-a my house”.

Around 150 threads of it.

What the Freepers fail to take into account here is :

a. People who are going to vote for Hillary are not going to be swayed by this burger of nothing, and will, in fact be even more motivated to get out and vote. People who were going to vote for Trump are still going to vote for Trump, and you don’t get any more votes for pushing the button harder.

b. The Repubs have been screaming EMAILZ“WOLF!!!1!” at the top of their lungs for 10 years now, which kinda blunts the message by repetition. If you hear something too many times, it just becomes gobble gobble gobble gobble.

Or, as a stand-up guy once put it:

“Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, “I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet,” and if he’d just say “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” to every nigger he saw, “boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie,” “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” ’til nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.”

We all knew that the voting machines are rigged Here is the video proof.

VIDEO

Trump was right. Where is the New York Times? Where is the Washington Post? Where are our esteemed reporters? There are citizens doing your job.

Like this citizen below, y’all. The on in the video, y’all. Here is an alleged video of an election machine switching votes in the swing state of Virginia.

You have literally watched corruption take place.

[VIDEO]

Watch that video above. That is a computer programmer in Florida that testified before a congressional panel that there are computer programs that can secretly fix elections. This happened in 2001, but you would have never seen this on the mainstream media.

*** Share this everywhere!

Document everything at the polls. We need to be able to fight the rigging. God bless all the Trump voters and share this post if you are voting Trump on Nov. 8th.

Scott Rigel was Congress 2nd District (Virginia Beach, VA). He is not running this year. He also is a turncoat Republican who has come out against Trump and changed his affiliation to Independent. The candidate taking his place is a former Navy Seal that is pro-Trump.

Don’t get baited into looking like an alarmist –

be calm and double check dates and locations before you start to ring the bell…

4 posted on ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2016‎ ‎9‎:‎40‎:‎01‎ ‎PM by monkeypants (It’s a Republic, if you can keep it.)

I was unaware this information had been verified as fraudulent or posted and pulled. If voter equipment is NOT malfunctioning GREAT!

The potential for voter fraud this election concerns me greatly. I have read reports that voting machines are recasting ballots from Trump to Clinton. Perhaps, the fraud of previous elections will reoccur in 2016 recasting relevance of this thread? i.e.

“As Americans, we want our elections to be fair and transparent. We want to know that when a candidate gets most of the votes, she, he, or they are the person who will be take office. It would hurt us to our core if our right to choose the ones that represent us were violated.

With this in mind, are the outcomes of the 2016 Democratic Party nomination contest completely legitimate? A number of anecdotal and journalistic accounts suggest that this is not the case.

(snip four paragraphs of word salad about some jackoff in the Netherlands)

However, Mea culpa if I have given any offense.17 posted on ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2016‎ ‎5‎:‎40‎:‎05‎ ‎AM by UMCRevMom@aol.com

Bloggers Note: This post was written Sunday afternoon before the FBI started leaking like a post-Katrina roof without a blue tarp and the anti-Comey backlash intensified. It’s too tightly written to be changed. Besides, my mind is numbed by that 3 1/2+ hour World Series game. We return to our previously scheduled programming, Easy Comey, Easy Go:

I think you know who I’m talking about, bumbling and spineless FBI director, James Comey. Comey’s intervention in the Presidential election is only a big deal if we allow it to be. It’s not a bombshell, it’s yet another nothing burger or a bun without a hot dog.

The story that emerges is of the cluelessness, cowardice, and incompetence of the head Feeb. I’ve heard pundits describe this as an “unprecedented” political interference by a FBI Director. What planet do they live on? Obviously one where history is neither taught nor studied. James Comey is a piker compared to J. Edgar Hoover. The difference is that Hoover was a devious bastard and hid his involvement in politics. No fingerprints = no blame. Comey is like a large dog who takes a shit in front of company. He’s established that he’s either too stupid or too naive to be an effective FBI director. He also loves publicity almost as much as the Insult Comedian who says: “dis is woise dan Watta-gate.” Gimme a break, asswipe.

It appears that Comey has violated a bunch of Justice Department procedures and perhaps even the Hatch Act. Comey’s sole concern seems to be his own reputation. That means he’s not only too stupid to be FBI director, he’s too arrogant and self-absorbed. He knew full-well that Jason Chaffetz would release the letter. I wonder when Chaffetz was first informed: he re-endorsed Trump the day before the shit hit the fan. He wouldn’t let Trump near his daughter but wants him to be President. Malakatude, thy name is Chaffetz.

As you can see, I’m mad about the Comey letter too BUT it’s time for the Clinton campaign to train its fire on a big fat target with bad hair: Donald Trump. There are a series of scandals with his “brand” all over them. The rest of the campaign should be about Hillary’s positive closing message and Trump’s staggering unfitness to serve as Oval One. It should not be about James Comey who first came to national prominence by being appointed Deputy Attorney General by John Ashcroft who lost his 2000 Senate race to a dead guy. I was hoping to work that in: it’s one of my favorite political fun facts.

I think Hillary Clinton is going to win the election regardless of this so-called “bombshell.” Something like 1/3 of the vote has already been cast and Trump spent Sunday stumping in states he’s going to lose. It’s unlikely that anyone will change their vote because of this hot dogless, mustard-free empty bun of a non-scandal. Besides, who’s going to change their mind based on the Comey cave and vote for a rapey Insult Comedian who will put the nation in a pickle?I don’t relish the thought.

I do, however, relish posting this tune by the late, great Merle Haggard:

I hear this crabbing every single year because I live in what freaked out white suburbanites think of as the hood, and from the next neighborhood over, the churches bring kids in vans and sometimes a bus.

WHICH IS FRICKIN’ GREAT.

From my perspective, I get to look at a variety of adorable babies in costumes, hand out candy, make them happy, and my kid gets to show off her costume to a wider audience

From theirs, they get a goddamn Snickers bar and to hang out in a place where they aren’t as likely to be mugged or killed.

“But I’ll run out of candy! It’s too expensive to buy for all these kids,” these people whine, and you know, just go inside when you run out and turn off your light. Halloween candy is expensive, I get it. But if you run out, you run out.

The first year we did a table in front of our condo building we ran out of candy in like an hour. The second year I bought rafts and rafts of it, and we had like six kids. There’s no way to tell.

“But I only want to give candy to the kids that live here!” Fuck you. No, seriously, fuck you. First of all, you can’t possibly be implying that you can tell, on sight, which kids “belong” in your neighborhood, are you? What would be the identifying factor?

Not the color of their skin, surely?

Second of all, fuck you again. Your ‘hood’s kids are not inherently more deserving than the next town over. If you can afford to live in my neighborhood generally you can afford some cheap candy, and if you can’t, again, go inside and turn off the light. But don’t turn a fun holiday into a power trip for your stupid, smug, self-satisfied suburban horseshit and try to get out of feeling guilty that you live in a nice enough place that people want to come trick or treating and other people live somewhere where they can’t go outside safely.

I have been fixated on the Presidential election and the World Series so I haven’t got any local tidbits to share this week. Shame on me.

When this post hits the internet, I will be at Tipitina’s with my sweetie seeing the Jayhawks. I cannot report on the show because I’m writing this beforehand. It makes me feel like a time traveler, which, given my obsession with the Wayback Machine, seems appropriate. I may have to bone up on the Back to the Future movies now that time travel is my thing. It’s a pity that my wife is a sane scientist, not a mad one, but one can’t have everything..

This week’s theme song was written by Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan. I never thought I’d write that phrase but I just did. The whole farce between Dylan and the Nobel committee is one of the funniest things since A Day At The Races: Get-a your tootsie frootsie ice-a cream. Dylan is likely to reject the award: it’s a pity he can’t send George C Scott or Marlon Brando to accept it on his behalf. Now *that* would be funny: bring on the award rejecters to accept the Nobel fucking prize. I do wish Dylan would accept the prize money and donate it to a worthy cause like, say, my cats…

Back to the theme song. I like Dylan as a songwriter but I’m not a fan of his singing, which is probably why I chose these versions of My Back Pages. The first one is from Bobfest in 1993. Dylan sings a verse but so do Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison.

The best known version of My Back Pages is by the Byrds from their 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday. Ain’t nothing quite like the sound of McGuinn’s twangy 12-string guitar and Byrdsy harmonies:

“Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” are words to live by at least until the break. After that all bets are off.

When the Cubs punched their first World Series ticket since 1945, I got a text from my wife:

“Your cousin is at the game. I saw a picture on Facebook.”

My cousin is a familial strain that reached into Illinois somewhere after my grandparents divorced. When her father couldn’t get a job in education in Wisconsin, my grandfather made “a few calls” back in the day when that was a standard practice and helped him land a teaching/coaching gig south of the border.

It was my aunt and uncle, three cousins, my grandfather and his wife who all took up residence in the Greater Chicagoland Area.

They always lived “around” Chicago, but never IN Chicago. No L stops or delis where you needed to speak Polish to get served. They were basically the exemplar of what drove my wife nuts in discussing Illinois geography with people:

Her: “So where are you from?”
Burb Kid: “I’m from Chicago!”
Her: “I grew up on Hermitage Avenue. What street are you?”
Burb Kid: (blank stare) Uh… I’m from Wilmette…
Her: YOU’RE NOT FROM FUCKING CHICAGO!!!!!

As a child, I looked forward to trips down there. I always left disappointed, as she seemed to exude what became known around these parts as “Just THEIR Way.”

Aloof. Self-absorbed. Dismissive.

Maybe it was that I was the little cousin (she being three years older than I) who was always forced on her. Maybe it was that we just sat on opposite sides of the gender pivot at all the wrong times. Maybe it was just irreconcilable differences in regard to upbringing (My uncle, the coach, was like the dad in “Pitch.” My parents encouraged me to do things I liked, as opposed to whatever obsession fueled them.)

Mom always assured me that eventually we’d grow out of those awkward phases and become closer. Mom was wrong and almost diametrically so.

When she got married the first time, I was required to serve as a reader. I protested against going, as the student newspaper was starting back up after a seven-month shutdown. This was going to be our crowning moment.

Mom basically slammed the door on that one and although I was an adult who could do whatever I saw fit, I needed to do things for the betterment of the family.

So I went. She never even noticed. Neither did any of the other “Illinois Family.”

The only perverse pleasure I took out of the whole thing was that about three years later, my cousin divorced. I would commonly snipe that at least the paper survived longer than the marriage.

She was in and out of college and blew through money like water, leaving behind her a party trail and a ton of debt. Her father throwing around his sizable weight to get her gigs here and there. Eventually she became a teacher, although I have no idea how the hell this is even possible. Of all the people I thought of as being kind and decent toward childhood betterment, she was the last one I’d imagine that would fit that bill.

I often felt like this scene in “The Ref” in dealing with her:

Eventually, she remarried to a man who had been adopted by a wealthy family as a child. He’d been divorced once as well and really never found anything that was his calling. Thus, he schlubbed along until my uncle helped make him a coach as well. When his parents died, he inherited extremely well and thus my fuck-up cousin and her doughy husband were suddenly able to live the life she always thought she deserved.

Concert? All of them and the best tickets.
Casinos? Black Jack for hours on end.
Travel? Florida, Vegas, whatever feels good.
Sports? Season ticket to the Badgers (my uncle emphasizes his ties to the UW to the point of absurdity; his kids never even sniffed Madison’s admission standards, but they are constantly adorned in Bucky-wear and participating in the “traditions” of sport).

The Cubs games are the latest extension of the way in which her family (all but my aunt, who seems to almost take pride in being a Milwaukee-rooted South-Side Polack who grew up over a tavern and just happened to move south) approach life. Truth be told, I can’t remember ever seeing anything Cubbie-related in their house or hear of a passion for the Northsiders. Still, now that this is a thing, she’s into it as are the others in her family.

It’s “the place to be” so they are there. It’s “the thing to do” so they do it.

When it comes to the nouveau riche and the inheriters, the baseball metaphor often applied is that they think they hit a triple but they were actually born standing on third base. I think a more apt description here would be that she thinks she hit a triple, but she landed on third thanks to a three-base error.

Over the years I’ve been accused of playing the “city mouse/country mouse” card on this blog: I perpetuate idea that Chicago is a vast urban hellhole with nothing that doesn’t reek of bus exhaust or homeless people’s pee.

OK, I’ll cop to that, but that’s not what this is.

When I see the Cubs fans they tend to put on TV in this World Series, I tend to see two groups of people featured:

103-year-old fans who get wheeled into the stadium valiantly fending off death for at least one more game in hopes of seeing the Cubs win it all before they die

Fuckheads like my cousin: Loud, belligerent, assholes who view things as their birthright and will never condescend to consider others.

The first group, I have no problem with at all and if my team can’t win this year, I’m glad they’ll at least get that moment for themselves. When the Red Sox got it in 2004, I was happy for all the people who lived long enough to see it and even those who took Red Sox caps to the cemetery for their departed loved ones.

As for the second group, I know many Cub fans and I know they’re not all like this. I’ve been there with them when we had to produce the 2003 coverage of the Cubs coverage for our paper. I’ve been with them when we both said, “Maybe next year for one of us” in hopes that we could either end with an “Indian Summer” or a “Goat-buster” in October.

But it’s like Jeff Foxworthy once said about Southerners: “We just can’t keep the most ignorant among us off of TV. When there’s a natural disaster, they never find a doctor or a lawyer. It’s always the woman in the sponge rollers and the muumuu.”

The Cleveland slogan this post season has been #RallyTogether. LeBron James has shown up repeatedly at the playoff games and called for support for the Tribe during his own crowning moment. Even in the worst of times, Clevelanders have always exuded that “We’re in this together” vibe.

For Cub fans, #FlyTheW has been the calling card. For those like my cousin, though, I think a better one might be #FuckYouImGettingMine

Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk is staring defeat in the eye. Everyone knows he’s going to lose his seat to Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth. Instead of leaving office with some dignity, Kirk aimed a low blow at his opponent’s ancestry during a debate last night.

“My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I’m a daughter of the American Revolution. I’ve bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound, because people are quick to sound the drums of war and I want to be there to say this is what it costs and this is what you’re asking us to do.”

Once she finished her answer, Kirk responded, “I forgot that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”

For the record, Duckworth’s mother is a Thai immigrant and her late father served in the U.S. Marine Corps and he’s the one with ancestry going back to the Revolution.

I think Kirk should be boiled in fish sauce, then slathered with Thai curry paste, and served at a DAR banquet. Fuck you, Senator. Whatever happened to going out in style? Oh well, at least he didn’t try playing wheelchair-to-wheelchair bumper car with his opponent. I suspect she’d win at that too: she’s a bona fide war hero whereas Kirk lied about his military record hence the featured image at the top of the post. That sort of lie harshes your karma, man.

The bad karma will catch up with Mark Kirk on election day. No curry for you, Senator. I seem to have curry on my mind this week. Speaking of karma, I wish there was a George Harrison tune that was as perfect for this post as My Sweet Lord was for Hare Donald. This Warren Zevon song will have to do:

I know quite a few Indian-Americans but none of them are Republicans or, heaven forfend, Trumpers. Apparently, there is rump of tRump supporters who belong to something called the Republican Hindu Coalition. They even staged an event with some Bollywood stars and the Insult Comedian himself. I wonder if B3 think of them as honorary white people? I hope Bannon gets back to me on that if he’s not too busy suppressing minority votes.

The Jersey event wasn’t a Trump soiree per se but a benefit. It did, however, inspire Trump to film an ad aimed at Indian-Americans wherein he spoke a line in Hindi and assured us that he “loved Hindus and India.” I was hoping he’d tell us how much he loves curry but it didn’t happen. Mmm, curry:

What? No mention of tandoori or naan? I’m having naan of it.

I’ll give the last word to George Harrison with a song that is *not* about Trump. Why? I found myself walking about singing “Hare Donald.” A feeble excuse to post a classic song but it’s mine all mine.

It’s weird out there this election season. Yeah, y’all already knew that but humor me. I’ll get to the point directly. Former Congresscritter and professional asshole, the Other Joe Walsh tweeted his way back into the limelight yesterday:

I love how Walsh and his ilk know nothing about history. Thomas Jefferson was an aristocrat who was all talk when it came to violence. He wouldn’t even have had the help do any musket grabbing since he owned the help. Besides, I think Jefferson, as a genuine albeit flawed civil libertarian, might hold different views on marriage equality if he were alive. He *was* known to be tolerant of gays during his lifetime. That’s right, Other Joe: there were gay people in the 18th Century too. Put that in your oven and bake it.

I got sidetracked by the follow-up tirade. Our longtime readers are used to that by now. The original musket love tweet gave me an earworm. A painful one at that: Muskrat Love by the Captain & Tennille. A hit song so bad that I refuse to get embed with it even though musket is an excellent pun on muskrat. Wait a minute, I saw a version with a weird featured image so I changed my mind but the puns stay.

Sorry about that, it’s the only way to expel an earworm: share the fucker. The stuffed muskrats were kinda cute though.

The Other Joe Walsh isn’t the only Trumper talking “revolution” when-not if-Trump becomes the losingest loser who ever lost. Consider me skeptical: they’re conjuring up the spirit of 2010, not 1776. The Tea Party types talked a big game but, in the end, they were all hat and no cattle. The cattle stampeded because the Teabaggers talked too loudly of death squads. Who wants to be a steak before one’s time?

I think most Trumpers will turn on their candidate when-not if-he loses. It’s what usually happens. There was a lot of brave talk in 1964 during the Goldwater campaign about revolting against a man they could have called Crooked Lyndon. Most of Goldwater’s supporters went on with their lives, others organized, nobody staged a violent revolution. There was no Tilden uprising after the 1876 squeaker was actually stolen. I am, however, concerned about random acts of gun nuttery but that’s a far cry from this apocalyptic Trumper nonsense:

Jared Halbrook, 25, of Green Bay, Wis., said that if Mr. Trump lost to Hillary Clinton, which he worried would happen through a stolen election, it could lead to “another Revolutionary War.”

“People are going to march on the capitols,” said Mr. Halbrook, who works at a call center. “They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there.”

Or this:

“It’s not what I’m going to do, but I’m scared that the country is going to go into a riot,” said Roger Pillath, 75, a retired teacher from Coleman, Wis. “I’ve never seen the country so divided, just black and white — there’s no compromise whatsoever. The Clinton campaign says together we are stronger, but there’s no together. The country has never been so divided. I’m looking at revolution right now.”

Excuse me, Mr. Teacherman. Remember a small thing called the Civil War? Your home state of Wisconsin was on the winning side of that conflagration. I hope he’s not a retired history or poli sci teacher. Schmuck.

Repeat after me: Americans hate losers and that’s what Trump will be the day after the election. Our job as citizens is to make sure he loses bigly. Believe me.

So as the campaign — at long last (and damn, that sucks…I used to enjoy the debate, if not the entertainment) — anyway, as the campaign winds down and Team Trump approaches its sell-by date (although, again, anything can happen)…the latest rounds of whatever-you-might-call-it…brought back, at least for me, the memory of Team Palin opting to go all out for Team Palin, and eff the Straight Talk Express.

This was originally supposed to be a malaka of the week post. Heaven knows, Curt Schilling may never be a baseball hall of famer but he’s definitely a candidate for the malakatude hall of shame. Once again, I came up with a clever title, which sounds a bit like a wingnut version of from Tinker to Evers to Chance.And that is why Curt Schilling is NOT malaka of the week.

People often wonder why some famous athletes don’t get involved in politics. Curt Schilling is a good example why some jocks should not go there. Schilling has gone from Boston Red Sox hero to a cautionary tale in 12 years. That may be forever on the internet but it’s a mere blink of the eye for those of us who either study history or take the long view of life. More people should try it. End of sermonette on the non-mount.

Schilling’s bloody sock moment came in the 2004 American League Championship Series against the hated Yankees. The BoSox rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Bronx bastards and one source of inspiration was Schilling’s John Wayne dude moment. I apologize in advance for making you listen to Buck the younger and lesser:

That made Schilling a hero to Red Sox nation as he helped end the so-called Curse of the Bambino. Enough with the curses. Because of that, liberal Democrats forgave Schilling for actively supporting Bush-Cheney in 2004 against hometown hero, BoSox fan, and Athenae boyfriend, John Kerry. Big John had ownership and Theo Epstein on his side, so all was forgiven by a fan base that the New Yorker’s Roger Angell once called “gentle Fenway transcendentalists.” I’m not sure if Rog has met any Red Sox fans from Southie but the image is so swell that Imma cut him some slack.

Schilling’s first foray into politics was a mere preview of wingnut coming attractions. The election of the first black President knocked a few screws loose in that big blonde head. That’s right, Schilling became a full-fledged teanut, but what really set him off were advances in gay rights and the backlash to it.

Back in April, Schilling was sacked from his gigas a baseball analyst at ESPN. His undoing was an itchy Facebook finger. The offending status was over the second B in our title: bathrooms. That’s right, the Curtster is a fan of the North Carolina bathroom bill:

A man is a man? That gives me an excuse to post an anti-machismo Who song. Thanks, asswipe:

Since Schilling is a Trump-style show-off who lives for attention, he’s flirting with the notion of challenging Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren when she’s up for re-election in 2018. This is akin to a kamikaze mission or volunteering to go to the Little Big Horn with his fellow blonde egomaniac George Armstrong Custer. Charlie Pierce, for one, hopes he goes for it:

Look, if I had a brand new local weekend radio talk-show to promote, I might do a lot of hilarious stuff, too. But Curt Schilling—who knows more about everything than you do, loser—has developed a marketing plan unlike anything I’ve ever seen. He has decided to be the funniest man on earth. There is no competition.

(By the way, if you’re not following ol’ @gehrig38 on the electric Twitter machine, you’re not having nearly enough fun in this world. Whatever the world record is for retweeting garbage directly from Breitbart’s Mausoleum For Chronic Unemployables is, Schilling has blown it up. And a couple of weeks ago, he explained how he could clean up the problems with the VA in two years. Whaddaguy!)

As you may have gathered from Charlie’s gleeful post, Schilling has taken his mouthy machismo to BreitbartRadio. This amounts to a meeting of 2016’s B3s: we’ve gone from Breitbart-Bannon-Bossie Man to the Bloody Sock Bathroom Breitbart Baseballer. Is that 4 Bs? Oh well, I never claimed to be a math wonk. My work here is *almost* done.

I’ve conclusively established that Curt Schilling is malakatude hall of shamer but what about the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown? He’s attracted support in his four years on the ballot: receiving 52% the last time around. But will he get over 75%? I hope not. His on-field case is a decent one although his list of comparable pitchers includes only one hall of famer: current Fox Sports analyst and former Braves star John Smoltz. Schilling *does* have a great post-season record: 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA. But will the bloody sock be enough to trump the other Bs: bathrooms and Breitbart? Stay tuned.

You’re living under a rock if you haven’t heard that the Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago Cubs in game one of the World Series last night. You’ve doubtless heard that the Cubs have not played in the Series since 1945 and have not won it since 1908 *before* Wrigley Field was built. The Indians lost in 1995 and 1997 and last won the fall classic in 1948.

Now that I’ve stated the obvious, it’s time for some pictures. First, the 1908 Chicago Cubs with a somewhat bedraggled mascot:

They don’t make mascot outfits like they used to. That’s a good thing in this case.

The next picture was taken after the Indians won the World Series in 1948. It features the first African-American player in the American League, Larry Doby, and Polish-American pitcher Steve Gromek. It’s a moment of pure joy.

I’ll have more to say about the 1948 Indians, Bill Veeck, and integration on Saturday. But I did weigh in on the team’s Chief Wahoo logo/mascot:

One of life's rich ironies is that the team with the racist logo was the first AL team to integrate. Second overall.